GIGABYTE has taken NVIDIA's improved GeForce 260 architecture - providing an additional 24 stream processors - and presented us with the GeForce GTX 260 OC.
The card, pictured below, packs a total of 216 stream processors and 896MB of GDDR3 memory. However, despite its 'OC' tag, this one isn't overclocked at all.
GIGABYTE's GeForce GTX 260 OC provides only stock GPU and memory frequencies of 576MHz and 1,998MHz, respectively. It's no wonder that the manufacturer didn't include specific clock speeds in its official press release or on its website - we had to go digging to reveal the non-OC speeds.
It's a slightly misleading card, we feel, but we'll give GIGABYTE the benefit of the doubt. It could, after all, be using the 'OC' moniker as a means to highlight that the card features more stream processors than the standard GeForce GTX 260.
Our original verdict remains; we'd have much preferred matters if NVIDIA had named the new GPU something like GeForce GTX 270. By doing so, purchasers would have a better idea on what they were buying, rather than attempt to differentiate between two SKUs based on the stream-processor count.
Official press release: GIGABYTE Unveils Next Generation GeForce® GTX 260 OC Graphics Accelerator
